jen you are going to love it...and make sure you learn how to shoot manual.... i am available if you have questions... come visit and we can shoot... and i know there are a lot of very accomplished canon shooters here to help you learn all the fun stuff

Thanks so much Bobbie! Becca helped me with the lens. You shoot beautiful photos just like her. I just hope I can deal with the learning curve. I have never been good at manual photos so I know this will be a challenge for me. But I'm very excited about taking my photography to the next level. One of my goals for 2012 is to take more photos. Hopefully my kids won't kill me. lol!

Congratulations and good luck!! There are so many cameras to choose from out there it gets mind boggling....

There are! And that's why it took me forever to take this step. I had no clue what to pick. I read something very recently (can't remember where.. maybe even here at SG) about if you have a Canon now go with the Canon DSLR because the controls are in very similar places - the style of the camera is the same - or close to it. I have a Canon Powershot. So after reading that advice I decided I was going to stay with Canon which narrowed things considerably. This advice for me was right on. The 60D feels a lot like my Powershot in my hand so I don't have to deal with that part. Then from there it was down to either the T3i or the 60D for me.

I went with the 60D after seeing a video comparing those two cameras side by side showing the continuous shoot speed. Both those cameras seem very similar on everything else with the T3i being cheaper. But with my kids starting to play sports, I thought I'd better go with something that could take quicker action photos. And with swimming...the race goes by in 30 seconds maybe 90 seconds if they are swimming double. LOL! With the camera I have now that gives me one photo maybe two. LOL! So that's why I went with that camera. But it took me what... two years of thinking about getting a DSLR camera to actually do it. I'm so behind the times. lol!

OOOoooooh, I'm squealing with excitement for you! Have FUN FUN FUN with it! You're going to learn so much and be so busy. Um....don't forget to keep designing a little something for we shoppers now and then. lol

Congrats, Jen! That is absolutely awesome!!! I bet you don't want to do anything but play with it!

Santa brought us a Nikon D3100 last month. I switched to manual today for the first time and got a pretty decent photo of a Christmas ornament. Gonna be taking tons of shots, that's for sure. Off to my favorite online book store to purchase a second battery and "The Digital Field Guide to the Nikon D3100" as Sandi recommended. Tonight is the first real challenge...girls' school Christmas program is tonight. We'll see how I do in funky light. I think I need to change the ISO....bettter go look that up .

Oh Jen, you'll just fall in love with it. I'm shooting with a 7D and the 60D is very similar (I have a friend who has one). And just take it a step at a time with getting out of auto. There are some great camera specific guides available and I took a course with Charlotte Lowery at BetterPhoto.com. Learn one thing, practice it and then add another...soon you'll be an expert. Just a little warning...when I first started shooting manual, I had some really really terrible shots....practice practice practice and you'll master it in no time. BTW, I have the same bag and love it! Just a little big for overhead bins on small planes though.

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Posted 15 December 2011 - 04:58 AM

How exciting, Jen! I can almost feel the excitement in your post! I love it when Santa comes early! You are going to have such fun this holiday season with your new camera! Can't wait to see your pics!

Very nice, you will love the 59mm 1.4 also. I highly recommend to look up and read about back button focus. Quick summary is you use the AF to focus instead of the shutter button, what this does is allows you to focus the camera on the subject, if it was a baby and wasn't smiling for example you stay focused at that distance, when you push the fshutter button it takes the picture without wasted focus time.

Once you shoot with it and get used to it you will never use shutter focus again.

Thanks so much everyone! I'm still excited but a little disappointed in myself after my first day with the camera. I decided to go full manual to force myself to learn so all the photos below are manual settings. I did have a few black photos that I had to trash. lolol! I really thought yesterday I had got some really great photos when I was looking at them in the LCD panel. They all seemed sharp. But after reviewing them this morning... not so much. My room lighting was dark (or I should say "normal" for my living room) and while I thought I did things to compensate for the low-light I still have blurrier photos than I thought I had taken. Part due to the low-light and part do to my hand shake. LOL!

I have tried to do manual on my older camera before and never had anything remotely close to a good a photo so I always gave up. With this camera I can see the potential right off and really thought I was doing okay. I think that's what I'm most disappointed about. Had they all looked bad in the LCD panel well that would be a completely other type of disappointment. LOL!

Overall I am very happy with the camera though. I just need to practice and I know that! lol!

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Love this one with Dan and Rogue... just wish it was sharper.

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The above images are straight from the camera - no processing. The one below is processed some.

Use the 50mm 1.4 as it is a prime lens with superior glass to the 55-250mm.

Try not shoot at 1.4 right off the bad, takes some practice, start at say aperture of 4.0After you meter your photo set for exposure be sure your shutter speed is above at least 60 to start, as you get practice you can lower this but with a lens that does not have IS you will get some blurry photos due to shake.

With a Aperture of 4 and shutter speed above 60 ISO could be set to auto and probably be 400-800 and should result in good range of settings.

Big important step is to also make sure the camera is set to Single Auto Focus point (The middle one), if you have all 9 points your letting the camera determine where to focus and that is not what you want.

With single point focus focus on the eyes and then re-compose your shot, then shoot. (Another big advantage to the back button focus I mentioned earlier)

I will look through the photos more, I would shoot by a window etc to give you good lighting, start with all that capture great photos to feel good about your camera and then start lowering the aperture to 2.8, 1.4 is extremely good for getting light in low light and nice blur but more difficult to shoot at.